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Special Mother’s Day Kolumn

Omigod. well everyone’s all a twitter here at Kelp Manor this week as Mother’s Day is almost upon us, careening around the bend in only two and a half weeks, so of course we’re all decorating and writing songs for the jubilee and rehearsing them and then some guy gets sick so you’ve got to find someone at the last minute and then that’s always chancey, but then sometimes it works out just fine for no reason whatsoever, and I think that this is one of the miracles of Mother’s Day: that you can do that, and not get hurt!

And I’d like to dedicate my column this week to my original mother, the graciously (some would say almost alarmingly) buxom and austere original Mrs. Kelp – while still acknowledging and even simultaneously celebrating the present Mrs. Kelp as well, of course (although they are, in fact, both extremely still present, but the new one, this one here, the apple of my eye, the phenomenally gifted and prodigiously talented and still appealingly down to earthingly youthful Mrs. K, of whom I am presently married, this isn’t her. It’s the other one.)

The one I was talking about before is the one to which I refer to, i.e., me mum. The one I sprang from, initially. And I had planned plenty more biting humor for this spot right here, but now that I’m here I’m more than tempted to say something sappy about how much I love her and how much she’s a pip on every level and charming and beyond in a way higher percentage of the time than anyone else I know, and that I treasure her, and thank you, and Happy Mother’s Day.

But where would that get me?

I know to her I’ll always be the toxic little dwarf who set her car on fire that stifling August evening, after the basketball game.

Still, there’s nothing like Mother’s Day to set your pulse a roiling, is there?

And, wait! But there’s so much more set up for us in the frenetic prelude to Mother’s Day, what with Nurse’s Day (which is like Mother’s Day squared, really- especially if they ARE mothers. That’s coming up next week! Right after Cinco Da Mayo, whatever the hell that is! (I certainly don’t want to be insulting to anyone here, but that one just doesn’t sound local.)

And all this so soon after Administrative Professionals Day last Wednesday! I mean, it’s Friday, and I’m still completely hungover from that one. Man! Can those people drink! And then they do this wild kind of administering that’s definitely not for the faint of heart. I’m glad you weren’t there. It was horrible.

I do love holidays, love to get dressed up (though, uncharacteristically, I still haven’t decided what my costume will be for Nurse’s Day); love the parades, the excitement, the intense odors, the happy dancing. Actually, what I’d really like is to have Kelp Day, where I stay home and people bring me presents and talk about how I’ve helped them (mostly with my mind.) (I’ve always tended to shy away from physical labor -that’s just always been my favorite labor to shy away from. As a result, all these years later, my physique is still hard as a couch.)

Before we conclude, I’d just like to add that though this column may not seem to address any local music topics directly, without mothers the whole local music scene would be quite different indeed.